


your body told me in a dream it's never been afraid of anything

by Stairre



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Aftercare, Background War, Breeding Kink, Canon Compliant, Consentacles, Dom/sub, Don't copy to another site, Drift | Deadlock is Sir Not Appearing In This Fic, Explicit Sexual Content, Interface Mods, M/M, Oviposition, Sticky Sexual Interfacing (Transformers), Tentacle Sex, Tentacles, There are no good guys in war, Unrequited Love, solely the kink because TFs can’t sexually reproduce, this is a “we love and respect Dai Atlas as a three-dimensional character” household
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-22 08:22:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30035823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stairre/pseuds/Stairre
Summary: In New Crystal City, Dai Atlas holds Wing close, just for one more night.(If you love something, let it go.)---Or: Dai Atlas has a tentacle mod in his frame and a secret love in his spark, Wing is very appreciative of one of these things and oblivious to the other, and for a guy who doesn't actually appear in the fic, Drift is very heavily present as a theme.
Relationships: Dai Atlas/Wing (Transformers), Implied/Referenced Drift | Deadlock/Wing
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	your body told me in a dream it's never been afraid of anything

**your body told me in a dream it’s never been afraid of anything**

–

“How is he?” Dai Atlas asks quietly, unsure if he really has the right to ask, but facing up to the fallout with a vague sense of grim duty, stiff with dignity.

“He’s well,” Wing answers, eyeing up his leader. “Or – as well as can be. Considering everything.”

They’re sitting in Dai Atlas’ home, Wing taking up the seat in the corner he always claims, somewhat more stiffly than usual, Dai Atlas on the sofa. Dai Atlas had thought about calling Wing to his office for this conversation, but – he’d decided not to. Too formal, and Dai Atlas hadn’t wanted Wing to feel like he was reporting to his leader. He wanted him to feel like he was talking to his friend.

“Considering everything,” Dai Atlas echoes. Yes, there rather is a lot of _everything_ , isn’t there? “Please, Wing. I know I – was harsh. But I do wish Drift his peace.”

_Harsh,_ not _wrong._ Wing lets it go. Dai Atlas’ fears are not unfounded, and his reaction to Wing brazenly breaking the laws of New Crystal City and coming back with an outsider in tow is, in retrospect, hardly disproportionate to the danger that could have come, could _still_ come.

“He’s – trying,” Wing settles on. “It isn’t easy for him. I’ve already contacted a couple of different therapists in the city for advice regarding combat-related trauma and such. Some gave me advice regarding abusive working environments, especially for survivors of gangs and the like, after I said he was a former soldier. Primus knows neither side have a good reputation for that. He’s – I won’t say it’s been easy, but he’s trying, and his behaviours are not out of the realms of expectation, considering what he’s come from.”

Dai Atlas shutters his optics, vents in, cycles it, ex-vents. “Will he consent to talk to one of them? By comm, if necessary?” The rule laid down before – that of Drift not being allowed to interact with the civilians in the city – now seems too harsh, too inflexible. The danger he might pose – perhaps even through no intent of his own – is still present, but perhaps Dai Atlas had used a hammer to solve the problem, when what he really needed was a precision laser scalpel.

Wing thinks about it, his lips twisting. “I can ask, but – I don’t think so, not yet,” he decides. “Drift’s – and apparently this is not unusual – Drift’s trying to change, to heal, while also simultaneously acting like he’s not, that he’s resisting. I think it’s some sort of – plausible deniability thing. So that if the Decepticons found us, he could believably go back into the fold, say that he was merely a prisoner, not a traitor. Survival behaviour, if you will. It’s – upsetting to watch, I won’t lie. He gets so far and then sabotages himself.”

“Two steps forward, one step back,” Dai Atlas acknowledges. “I am familiar with this behaviour.” He doesn’t say where, when, who, and Wing does not ask. Dai Atlas is old, and has seen a lot. “Do not be discouraged, Wing,” he says gently. “If Drift truly wished to leave, he would have taken the offer to wipe his memory files of New Crystal City and be dropped in a Neutral space station when it was made. He wants this, he just doesn’t know how to want it. Doesn’t know he’s _allowed_ to want it.”

Wing nods, soothed and reassured. Still… “I thought you didn’t like him,” he says, prodding.

“I don’t like the danger he poses, his own or his former compatriots’,” Dai Atlas corrects. “I am the leader of this city, Wing. There are thousands of innocents to look out for. How does one weigh that against a single life, that of a self-confessed murderer and a soldier of one of the armies that commits genocide on the regular? I am not – believe me, I am not unsympathetic of Drift. He has – through actions, if not words – expressed a desire for change, for redemption. All are equal in Primus’ sight, and I believe, like you, like our god, in second chances, in love conquering hate and fear. I _want_ Drift to find his own peace. But I have other factors than just him to consider.”

Wing is quiet for a moment. “I understand,” he says, and he does.

“I know I was harsh with my words,” Dai Atlas repeats, “and – as his mental health improves, and he begins to settle here – I will slowly repeal the bounds I set on Drift. He is now, for better or worse, a citizen here. He will be treated fairly, I swear it. The safety of innocents comes first, but he is not a pet or a prisoner, and his voice will be weighed the same as any of the other citizens. May he find healing here.”

Wing shutters his optics, “Yes, Dai. Thank you,” he says, softly. It’s good news, better than he hoped, and even as he thinks that Wing feels a flush of guilt. Dai Atlas has always been a just, honourable leader, unyielding on the outside and caring under the surface. And he’s Wing’s _friend._ Wing should have believed in him more.

Dai Atlas inclines his head. “Is Axe covering for you ‘til morning, or only for this evening?” he asks, again unsure if he should, but unable not to try.

“All night,” Wing answers. “Drift needs to have access to other people without me constantly around, supervising his every move. I know Axe is another knight, but – he’s not me. It’s not good to limit his already limited contact further.” Wing looks Dai Atlas up and down. “Besides,” he adds, “I needed a bit of a break, too.”

Dai Atlas doesn’t make the first move. He never does. He’s too aware of that imbalance hanging over their helms, the fact that no matter how many millennia Dai Atlas and Wing have known each other, no matter how long they’ve called themselves _friends,_ Dai Atlas is still bigger, stronger, more experienced, more powerful than Wing, and, technically, the mech Wing serves, the holder of his oaths.

“Would you like to stay the night?” Dai Atlas asks, leaving the question open-ended, so that Wing could refuse and go, could accept and stay in one of the guest rooms, or could accept and – join him. And Dai Atlas could hold him close, just for a night.

Wing is not easy to hold, it’s like trying to grasp a summer breeze, but Dai Atlas keeps the words in his vocaliser muted, because Wing would likely try to stay, if he asked, but it would make him miserable in the long run. Dai Atlas doesn’t want to be the cause of Wing’s misery.

“I would,” Wing says, thoughtfully. It _has_ been a while since he and Dai Atlas last shared pleasure with each other, and he cannot deny that he has missed the immense comfort that a night with Dai Atlas brings, so large and safe to curl up in the arms of. He swirls the last of the energon in his cube around a little, drains it, then stands and crosses the room, coming to Dai Atlas’ side. With the much larger mech sitting, they’re nearly of a height, and Wing leans in to stroke a hand over one of the golden sensory horns rising from Dai Atlas’ helm. “If that’s all right with you.”

Dai Atlas shutters his optics, the sensory horn twitching at the feedback of Wing’s EM field against his, the touch of his digits. “Right here in the living room, Wing?” he asks, almost chiding, but this is a tone that Wing knows well. Teasing. Indulgent.

“Well, if old mecha like you need to stretch your weary struts out on a berth, I’m open to being flexible,” Wing smiles, adding a second hand to the opposite sensory horn, stroking purposefully along it and letting light sparks of charge escape his fingertips, sinking into the dips and angles of Dai Atlas’ helm, over-sensitising the hot zone that sensory appendages become the instant interface programs start running.

“Such cheek in the youth these days,” Dai Atlas grumbles, both of them knowing that Wing is hardly _the youth,_ and is only young in relation to Dai Atlas. “Where do you get it?”

“Oh, no,” Wing grins, “this cheek is all home-grown. Requisitions was fresh out.” He straightens up, stepping back, and Dai Atlas follows, rising from his sofa and trailing after Wing as the smaller mech leads him towards his own hab suite.

They step inside, Wing clambering on to the large berth with the type of familiarity that millennia of occasional encounters brings. Dai Atlas feels a curl of exasperated, inordinate fondness as he closes the door and switches the lights on to seventy per cent, watching Wing take off the sturdy woven blanket (gifted to Dai Atlas by an organic planetary representative so long ago he cannot bring up their name without doing a deep memory file retrieval) that absolutely cannot get stained with transfluid, fold it up, and place it on the side table next to the berth, before stretching out and making himself comfortable.

It’s a sight Dai Atlas has seen many times. But whenever he ends up here, walking towards his own berth with Wing smirking up at him, frame angled and helm tilted just-so, it somehow feels like a novelty repeated anew every time. But that might just be the way that Dai Atlas trails his optics slowly, as he does every time he gets to do this, seeking to memorise how it feels to hold that which cannot be held.

Dai Atlas kneels on the berth, moves to straddle Wing, and _Primus_ does the other mech always manage to look small beneath him whenever they end up here. A single one of Dai Atlas’ thighs is around the same girth as Wing’s abdomen, the space between the flare of his pelvic plates and the widening of his chest armour. One knee on either side and Wing is – to a casual, uneducated observer – trapped beneath Dai Atlas’ bulk.

Dai Atlas knows, of course, that Wing is neither helpless nor in danger. It doesn’t stop the rush of hot protective possessiveness, made even warmer by the knowledge that this is a temporary, transient agreement. _Stay,_ Dai Atlas thinks, but blocks the word from exiting his vocaliser.

Wing raises his hands to trace the lines and angles of Dai Atlas’ front, gathering his EM field at his fingertips and trailing sparking caresses across Dai Atlas’ sensor-net. “Come on,” Wing says, bucking his hips so that they scrape against Dai Atlas’ hovering over him, “let’s get started. I want to see if I can get myself any dents for Axe to frown disapprovingly at.”

Dai Atlas snorts softly. “Axe has nothing to do with this,” he says, leaning over and taking one of Wing’s hinged finials in hand, tugging gently and rubbing the tip between his fingers. The finial flicks towards him, pressing eagerly into his hand, the ghost of a smile starting to appear on Wing’s face.

“It’s ‘cause he’s so big,” Wing sighs, dipping his digits into one of the vents on Dai Atlas’ front, stroking the thinner, sensor-laden metal of the horizontal strips inside. “He has to be careful when interfacing, so that an embarrassing call to Redline doesn’t have to be made. So now he views _any_ kind of interface-related ding or scuff as some kind of failure on someone’s part. It’s mostly fine, but kinda annoying when you’re the one whose case he’s getting on.”

“Wing,” Dai Atlas says, teasing the hinge of the finial and dispersing a small shock directly onto the tiny joint, Wing groaning at the sensation, “I’ve got to be honest – I don’t want to be talking about Axe while I’m in this berth with _you.”_

“Sorry, sorry,” Wing says, thumbing the trim of the vents. “But, anyway, what I meant was – please mark me up a bit. It’s been a while and I want something to look at over the next couple days while my self-repair takes care of it.”

How is it that Wing can just _say that,_ and not know what it does to Dai Atlas? Or maybe he does, from the look of the smirk on his face once Dai Atlas can meet his optics again. There’s no pretending that his EM field didn’t just explode with lust, after all.

“How early is Axe expecting you back?” Dai Atlas asks, settling his weight more firmly, though of course not enough to cause pain. He wants Wing to _feel him,_ to feel the sheer heft of just whose berth he’s in. Dai Atlas can’t keep Wing, not for real, and their liaisons are hardly frequent, but Wing’s often been open to domination play, and Dai Atlas is too weak to resist indulging him, every time. And why shouldn’t he? They both enjoy it – Dai Atlas almost too much.

“He’s got a choir meeting at midday,” Wing answers, testing how much he can move his hips with Dai Atlas’ new position – not much at all is the answer – and feeling his anticipation kick up a notch, “so I’m free all night and all morning. Do your worst.”

_Do your worst._ Wing was truly sent by Primus to test Dai Atlas’ self-control, wasn’t he? “Got anything more clear than that?” Dai Atlas asks, keeping still. “Mods? No mods? Toys? Wing – _tell me._ I’m not a mech that likes to guess, not when it comes to things like this. I’m old, not a mind-reader.”

“Old means experienced, not unwanted,” Wing says automatically, a repetition of his standard reply whenever Dai Atlas’ age gets brought up, usually in quiet moments when Dai Atlas’ thoughts have lingered on the breadth of generations between them, and doubt that Wing would find him a particularly captivating partner – casual or not – has reached his vocaliser. Wing’s not exactly _young,_ but – Dai Atlas remembers the First Cybertronian War, and Wing isn’t old enough to remember the Second. “And I think I would like to see those tentacles of yours, if you’re amenable?”

Dai Atlas says, “Why am I not surprised?” even as his fans tick up a notch higher.

Wing grins unrepentantly. “I love that you still have that mod,” he says.

Dai Atlas hums. “It’s so out of fashion,” he says, but he knows that he’s never going to get rid of it, even as the number of partners who’ve been happy to try it out with him have whittled down over the long millennia. One, it’s a _great_ mod for some interesting self-service, and two, Wing likes it. “You want the ovipositor mod active, or not tonight?”

Wing groans at the thought. “I want them,” he says, regretfully, “but I’ve got Drift at home. I can’t be walking around revved up with synthetic eggs inside me for days waiting for them to dissolve when I don’t live alone anymore. It’s not fair. So… no, sadly.”

Dai Atlas hesitates a moment, but – “I can change the time it takes for the eggs to dissolve,” he says, “if you’re up for it.”

Wing pauses, resting his hands on Dai Atlas’ front, stilling his fingers from their stroking. “You can?”

Dai Atlas nods. “When I synthesise them, I can adjust their chemical make-up a little. More of that, less of this, that sort of thing. I think the shortest time frame I can go is… fourteen hours, maybe? Less than that, and they won’t be fully solid.” They have more than fourteen hours, if Wing doesn’t have to be back until midday tomorrow.

“If you can,” Wing answers, his optics brightening, “then _please.”_ He flexes his hips up, what little he can, pressing his hot panel against Dai Atlas’. “Come on, let’s get started.”

Dai Atlas leans down, claims Wing’s mouth in a kiss, letting charge leak from his oral sensors and slick itself along his glossa as he pushes it into Wing’s welcoming mouth. As Wing groans and slides his glossa against the much larger one pushing inside, Dai Atlas sends some silent commands to the small synthesising tank embedded in his abdomen, instructing it to draw from his frame’s reserves to create a few synthetic eggs to push into Wing.

Their chemical make-up is all things a frame needs, and as they dissolve Wing’s valve will absorb them into his own reserves – transfluid is much the same, really. Their kind doesn’t sexually reproduce, despite the aesthetical similarities between interface arrays and organic reproductive systems, but it’s undeniably a kink some mecha have, the allure of things alien and unknown. Not that Dai Atlas can judge, or would judge – _he’s_ the one who has this mod, after all.

Wing tries to buck against him again, their armour scraping together, though not with any real force – Wing doesn’t have the leverage. Dai Atlas catches Wing’s hands and pins his wrists to the berth either side of him as Wing tries to stroke Dai Atlas’ inner vents again. “Did I say you could touch?” Dai Atlas says, but even as he does so, he brushes his EM field against Wing’s in question. _Is this all right?_

Wing tries to get his wrists free at the same moment that he pushes back _yes-thrill-excitement_ through his EM field. He doesn’t succeed, Dai Atlas’ strength immovable, and slumps back down on his leader’s berth, parting his legs a little wider. “Maybe you could start touching _me.”_

He bucks against Dai Atlas’ interface panel again, but the increased warmth that was there before is gone, leaving only a frame’s normal temperature, Dai Atlas’ standard interface array powered down in favour of re-routing that charge… elsewhere.

On the small of Dai Atlas’ back, either side of his spinal strut, two armour plates slide up and latch above, and six round panels hidden beneath transform open. Dai Atlas shivers a little as his mod emerges, six tentacles made of many interlocking components, lined with sensory nodes and spiralling bio-lights, each tipped by bulbous head that’s not _quite_ like a spike-head, but close enough.

They’re each just less than the girth of an average spike – no sense in them being _too_ thick if one wants to potentially get more than one inside a valve at a time, that’s just a piece of short-sighted stupidity that works in porn and nowhere else – and they’re a lovely dark blue colour to match his plating, the bio-lights a bright gold. They’re also very, _very_ sensitive: it’s why Dai Atlas has already pinned Wing’s wrists – if his knight had his way, he’d have Dai Atlas hurtling towards overload already with his clever fingers.

Wing’s optics land on them as they extend, snaking around Dai Atlas’ back and coming into view, Dai Atlas in complete control of the extra limbs, flexing them as easily as he flexes his own arm. “Now that’s more like it.”

“So impatient,” Dai Atlas says, coiling two of the tentacles down and wrapping them around Wing’s thighs, tugging them apart. Hm. This position’s not that good, space-wise and flexibility-wise. It would be fine if Dai Atlas were planning to use his spike, but – “I’m going to move us,” he tells Wing, and then does it without waiting for an answer.

Dai Atlas lets go of Wing’s wrists briefly, grips him by the sides instead, and rolls them over on his large berth, careful of his extended tentacles, Wing pinned to his front. He sits himself up, leans against the wall at the head of the berth, and curls two additional tentacles around Wing’s wrists before his knight has had a chance to recalibrate himself.

Wing settles himself in Dai Atlas’ lap, the tentacles pulling apart his thighs and keeping him a little off balance, his arms held in the air either side of him by the tentacles around his wrists, keeping him from having anything to hold to help right himself. His startled EM field dips back down into a thrilled purr at the manhandling. “Am I right where you want me yet?” he teases, leaning in to press a kiss to Dai Atlas’ lips.

“Not quite,” Dai Atlas says, and then he flips Wing around unclasping and re-clasping the hold of his tentacles. Now Wing is leaning his back against Dai Atlas’ front, sat on the berth between his leader’s legs, and Dai Atlas tugs with his tentacles to make Wing’s pedes hook around the outside of his own thighs, pressing against the sides of his knee joints, spreading him widely due to their sheer size difference. “That’s better.”

Wing shifts in place, his hinged helm fins flicking a little, but he has no ability to close his legs, and is stuck presenting his panel to the open room – and to the two remaining tentacles, now coiling around to touch their heads gently to it. Wing hisses at their buzzing touch on his heated panelling, his legs pressing in against the sides of Dai Atlas’ knees, unable to close, the tentacles still wrapped around his thighs pulling him open wider. It feels vulnerable, but in a good way, something thrilling, and he hasn’t even opened his panel yet, but it will surely become more so when he does, and his delicate and sensitive array is truly bared.

Dai Atlas hums, and the tentacles coiled around Wing’s wrists rise up and pull back, shortening, curling over Dai Atlas’ shoulders and pulling Wing’s arms up to hook around the back of Dai Atlas’ neck, leaving Wing’s spinal strut curving around Dai Atlas’ anterior kibble, pushed a little forward by it even as he’s pulled back taut against his leader.

It’s not enough to hurt – Wing’s spinal strut is incredibly flexible, a virtue of his transformation requiring him to literally fold himself in half along it – but it gives the position a very slight edge of strain, of the type that when Dai Atlas finally starts actually stimulating him into overload, it’s just going to add to the whole experience, not take away anything.

Wing struggles in place a little, testing how far he can move, his EM field buzzing with eagerness as he discovers in short order that Dai Atlas has got him pretty much immobilised, pulled flush and wanting against his own frame. He tips his head back, baring his throat cables and meeting Dai Atlas’ optics with his own. “Usual safe word?” he asks.

“Yes,” Dai Atlas confirms. The tentacles pinning Wing means his own hands are free to trail against Wing’s front, thumbing at blinking bio-lights and settling on his large rotator gears either side of his midsection. Wing whines a little at that, shuttering his optics half-way. Exposed circuitry-heavy gears are sensitive to any buzzing touch, and Dai Atlas’ fingertips are coated in charge, rubbing mercilessly at a place he knows will send Wing’s charge levels soaring.

His knight squirms against his front, EM field rippling with pleasure, trying to catch at Dai Atlas’ own electromagnetic sensors and stimulate them with nothing but his field, but –

Dai Atlas presses one of the free tentacles directly against Wing’s hot interface panel, perfectly placed to dig into the gap between the pelvic armour and the thigh armour – too thick to touch the protoform, but the tentacle’s charge, leaking from its dozens of tiny output sensors and slicking it entirely, manages to partially stimulate the inner frame – and the concentration needed for precise field-play slips from Wing’s grasp entirely.

Dai Atlas keeps one large hand on one of Wing’s rotator gears, still teasing his fingers in a circle around, tracing it. The other, he slides down, pressing his palm against Wing’s interface panel, gripping it firmly where it juts out, feeling for a moment that his hand is almost too big for his lover. _He’s_ too big. Too old. Then Wing tries to buck into him and the thought slides from Dai Atlas’ mind.

Dai Atlas flexes every one of his tentacles, the two securing Wing’s wrists, the two coiling around his thighs, and the two prodding at the edges of his interface panel, each and every one of them slicked with charge and relaying back how lovely Wing’s EM field is, how it buzzes over the sensitive appendages, how their chemo-sensors are detecting arousal, the feedback from the sensor-nets of the warmth and solidity of Wing’s frame… this mod is old, out of fashion, and the tentacles are probably more delicate than what a more modern version of the mod would have in its specs, but Dai Atlas refuses to change them. This is _his,_ his and Wing’s.

Wing shudders a little when Dai Atlas leans in, murmuring low into his left audio, “Open up,” his breath skirting against Wing’s helm fins, cool on over-sensitised receptors.

Wing slides his interface panel open, the two tentacles shifting a little as the panel retracts. His legs clench against Dai Atlas’ thighs at the wide open exposure of his array, instinctually wanting to close his legs even a little, reduce the vulnerability of his position, but he can’t, and that sends a hot thrill through him. His valve’s calipers clench, cycling down on nothing but anticipation, and his spike tries to ping his HUD, after the command prompt to unhouse itself, but Wing denies it, re-routing the charge to his valve, locking his spike offline. Not tonight.

Dai Atlas hums, looking down. He can’t quite _see,_ since his knight being stretched over his own anterior kibble means that there’s simply too much armour in the way to get a good view, but – he shutters his primary optics, and ups the intake of the sensors in the two tentacles now inching themselves closer to Wing’s array, teasing with light touches the edges of his mesh folds.

They’re not visual relays, too old for that to be included in the specs, but between the proximity sensors, the chemo-receptors, the light scanners, and the tactile sensors, they’re almost as good as. Dai Atlas tucks his head into the back of Wing’s neck, clamping his mouth around the jointure of where his shoulder armour meets his neck cables, muffling whatever sounds he makes even as he slicks his mouth with a little bit of charge, enough to sink into the sensitive cables here, so very close to Wing’s processor.

Wing groans a little, and then Dai Atlas flexes the tentacles and slides one against his valve entrance, through the welling lubricant and grazing the bright anterior node, and then Wing is groaning _a lot._ He can practically taste the musky lubricant on his glossa, psychosomatic, associations from the feedback of the chemo-receptors, and Dai Atlas has tasted Wing before, of course, but he denies himself that pleasure now. This is about Wing, and making him feel good, making him finally relax and de-stress. Dai Atlas is his leader, and it’s his – admittedly, right now, very pleasurable – duty to take care of his knights. If he has a – soft spot – for Wing, well. That’s their business, not anyone else’s.

Wing’s thighs twitch uselessly as that one tentacle prods against his anterior node again, this time a little harder, smearing the lubricant it’s picked up against it. “Come on,” Wing gets out, “get inside me.”

“Patience,” Dai Atlas counsels again, already knowing that he’s not going to give Wing what he wants until he’s overloaded at least once without penetration. He doesn’t anticipate it taking long – Wing is already incredibly revved up and Dai Atlas _knows_ that he hasn’t got either a court-mate or a steady casual lover right now, someone who would help take the edge off of Wing’s flight-frame typical high interface drive. Not that he _tries_ to keep track of such things – Wing’s love life is _not his business,_ he has repeatedly reminded himself – but they interact in their day-to-day lives closely enough for Dai Atlas to be… peripherally aware of such facts.

Wing groans low as Dai Atlas moves the head of his tentacle against his valve folds again, his entrance ring clenching as it tries to catch on the tip, futile in its efforts as the tentacle slides away again, the seams of the interlocking components bumping against the pulsing anterior node as Dai Atlas drags it by. More lubricant drips out, and Dai Atlas hums as Wing’s EM field tinges with both arousal and frustration, desperate for a more fulfilling touch. The chemo-receptors soak it all up, and Dai Atlas unshutters his optics again, even though his view is still limited – at least this way, he can catch glimpses of Wing’s gorgeous face as it contorts in want.

Dai Atlas mouths at Wing’s neck cables, denting them enough that his knight’s self-repair won’t smoothen them back out for a few days, long enough for Wing to have to sit through the monthly meeting with them there, hyper-aware of them under Dai Atlas’ gaze at the head of the table. He _did_ say that he wanted to be marked up, and Dai Atlas is weak to placing physical proof that Wing has shared this with him.

Wing’s guest, Drift, will take one look in the morning and _know,_ but – that is not a bad thing, Dai Atlas decides, perhaps a little too hotly. Wing has a life here, outside of Drift, and Dai Atlas would never wish Drift distress, but the sooner he settles and gets to the point where Wing’s duties are not tied up in supervising him all the time, the sooner Wing can get back his own normal life here. And Drift can begin to _have_ a normal life, which is another desired outcome, of course.

Dai Atlas slides his hands back down Wing’s front, pulling them from where they’d been teasing and rubbing at his bio-lights and rotator gears, and instead places them palm-flat on Wing’s inner thighs, the edges of his fingers skirting Wing’s array, some lubricant wetting them a little. It’s not real stimulation, only enough to tease his knight of what _might_ happen if Dai Atlas chose to move his hands.

“Fragging,” Wing hisses out, _“tease.”_

Dai Atlas laughs softly, letting his fingers trail a light touch over the edges of the valve folds, resisting the urge to sink them into that protoform-soft mesh, curl his fingers inside Wing’s wet heat. Wing would welcome the touch, would clench and buck and try to work Dai Atlas’ fingers in deeper, but in resisting Dai Atlas only makes Wing more desperate, and – Wing looks _beautiful_ when he’s desperate, writhing in denied pleasure, his faceplates flushed and EM field begging.

With one of the two free tentacles he continues to glide the bulbous head through Wing’s damp mesh folds, sliding against his sensors and never giving him any real relief. The other tentacle he trails up, stopping at the neck cables, pressing there against the vocaliser beneath. Wing stills instinctively, his fans whirring loud in the sudden quiet.

“Is this okay?” Dai Atlas asks carefully. “Safe word across the comms as usual – ”

“ _Please,”_ Wing says, interrupting.

Dai Atlas lifts the tentacle, pressing the head gently against Wing’s mouth. His knight parts his lips immediately, bobbing his head what little he can forward, taking into his mouth the bulbous tip. Dai Atlas groans, low and rumbling, as Wing instantly starts to suck on the tentacle’s sensitive head, teasing the mostly-closed seam with the tip of his glossa, flexing his oral components around the tentacle head as though it were a hard-shelled energon goodie, the kind that are best to keep in the mouth, working them around and letting them slowly dissolve on the glossa.

Dai Atlas’ tentacle probably doesn’t taste as sweet as an energon goodie, but Wing laps the leaking fluid up anyway. Dai Atlas can redirect his transfluid tanks to feed into the tentacles instead of his spike, or else use a smaller coolant tank he had installed when he realised how much tentacles got some people’s oral fixations revving hard.

The coolant is better to the taste than transfluid – less musky, less rich, more refreshing than sweet – but he’s found that the pulsing heat of the tentacle, heavy in the mouth, when juxtaposed with the cooling sensation and tingle of the lower-temperature coolant sends the glossa’s chemo-receptors into a confused clash with the other internal oral sensors. In short – it overstimulates the mouth overall, and then but the slightest bit of charge sent along the tentacle to leak into the mouth as well has the recipient moaning and twisting as they confusedly _swallow_ pleasure.

Wing’s more than familiar with this particular trick of Dai Atlas’, so he doesn’t hesitate to bob his head what little he can, still pulled taut against his leader the way he is. It’s not like stimulating a spike, not at all. Easier, for one, because the head fits in his mouth with enough room for him to manipulate it with his glossa, his lips closing around the thinner tentacle instead of trying to wrap around a spike’s girth, oral lubricant trailing from the corners of his lips still, but nothing like trying to suck spike.

Dai Atlas lets Wing do as he wishes with his sensitive tentacle, hitching deep vents across his back, tucking his head into Wing’s neck cables, instead of Wing having to adjust for the stuttering bucks of a frame trying its best not to make the experience unenjoyable for him by thrusting into an unprepared intake. Not that they haven’t experimented with deep-throating via the tentacle mod – they most definitely have, and it’s _amazing,_ if decidedly something one has to be in the mood for – but the way Dai Atlas lets his tentacle rest lax in Wing’s mouth, handing control over to Wing by dialling back his own locomotive connection to the limb, only enough for the tiniest of automatic flexes, though of course not muting any of the sensory feedback…

Wing can’t smile around the tentacle, but he grazes his EM field against Dai Atlas’, pushing across contentedness, tinged still with frustration as the other tentacle continues to rub against his anterior node, _still_ not pushing into his empty valve, the entrance ring still cycling down on nothing. Dai Atlas’ hands are even still on his thighs, the fingers now tracing the gap between Wing’s pelvic armour and his thigh armour, sparking tiny bits of charge into the sensitive wires there, sadly a bit too large to dig deep enough to reach the protoform beneath, unable to stroke there.

Wing’s optics are struggling to focus, and he teeters, he knows, on that edge. Not overload, sadly, but the moment that he’ll just relax back and start letting this happen to him at Dai Atlas’ pace. When he’ll stop holding his limbs so tense and instead let his own pleasure twitch and move his frame as it may, surrendering to Dai Atlas’ hold on him, sucking on the tentacle and swallowing down the tingling pleasure into his tanks, relaxing into being filled up from both ends – and it’ll happen, he knows, because Dai Atlas always tries to outlast Wing’s stubbornness until he submits to his leader’s will, and most of the time he even succeeds.

Wing’s always had trouble getting into this mindset, even when he wants it. It’s caused him frustration before – he likes to be the dominate partner, to pull someone else apart with pleasure before putting them back together, satiated and warm and languid in the aftermath. He also likes this, giving his submission and his trust to someone else – usually Dai Atlas – well, no, _always_ Dai Atlas, because while Wing enjoys the surrender once he’s got there, most mecha don’t have the patience to work him into it. He’s not someone who can turn it on like pulling a lever, he has to sink down slowly under another’s stubborn ministrations, lose a battle that doesn’t truly have a loser, only winners. Dai Atlas is the only one, so far, but – Wing still has hope.

Still, Wing is not one to surrender without one last parting shot, so he stills his mouth, letting the tentacle head slip out from his lips, wet with oral lubricant, dripping down his chin. Interface is never _not_ messy. Dai Atlas, so respectful as always, doesn’t try to push it back inside, even though Wing never sent their safe word across the comms. He hums instead, EM field tinging a little with concern, and asks, “Wing?”

Wing tilts his head back, smirking up at Dai Atlas, and says, knowing _exactly_ what he’s doing to his leader, “I love how you fill me up, valve and intake. I love feeling your eggs, how they shift inside me and keep my array heavy for days. How I clench around them and how I have to self-service for relief.” Wing’s optics go knowing, teasing but soft, and he continues, “I love the look on your face when my outer armour plates have to unlatch and loosen to fit your eggs inside.”

“ _You_ are a _menace,”_ Dai Atlas says, strained.

“Guilty as charged,” Wing grins, but he knows that the bright teasing edge is fading from his mental grasp. He sighs, rests the back of his helm against Dai Atlas’ collar faring, and says, “Fill me up, Dai. Please. I want – I want to feel you.”

Dai Atlas rumbles his engine and leans in to kiss Wing’s left cheek-plate. The angle’s a bit awkward, there’s more than a little kibble in the way, but the sentiment is enough to tip Wing straight off that cliff edge, changing the gears in his processor as suddenly folding beneath the will of a kind, all-consuming, thoughtful lover becomes a warmth and comfort too good to resist any longer. Wing’s optics slip into a half-shuttered state, dimming slightly, and though he flexes back against the brush of Dai Atlas’ tentacle against his anterior node, jerking as it throbs hard, swollen beneath the glancing touches, it’s no longer with the same type of conscious movement; he’s let the tide take him, now, and he knows he’s going to love every minute of it.

Wing feels the gentle press of the other tentacle at his lips again, and he opens them to let the tentacle push inside. He sucks on it, lazily, the coolant dripping from it sliding down his intake, mixing with the excess oral lubricant leaking from his internal components, letting the huge wash of Dai Atlas’ EM field warm him and cradle him. It’s aroused, buzzing with charge, and the tentacles are so sensitive… Dai Atlas must be close, too.

Dai Atlas strokes Wing’s wet folds with his fingers, pressing against the swollen anterior node, pulsing a bright gold. His tentacle rubs against the entrance of his knight’s valve, not pushing in, but letting the charge from its relays sink into the entrance ring through the conductive lubricant, feeling it cycle down, trying to catch at the bulbous tip, scraping against the edges of it uselessly.

Wing moans, vents hitching, fans whirring, his head pressed against Dai Atlas, tipped back as far as it will go, his neck cables exposed to the kisses of Dai Atlas’ mouth, the nips of his denta. His helm fins twitch on their hinges, folding back to get out of Dai Atlas’ way, banging lightly and repeatedly against the side of Dai Atlas’ cheek-plates in unconscious movements caused by the pleasure Dai Atlas is scorching through Wing’s frame.

Dai Atlas shudders himself. His tentacles are so sensitive, and – Wing still has one in his mouth, is still sucking on it, slower now, but that press of wet heat swallowing the tip is divine. It’s not exactly like receiving oral stimulation on his spike, but – it’ll make him overload just the same, Dai Atlas knows. And then Wing’s mouth will be filled with – transfluid, he decides, because Wing won’t care, and coolant just doesn’t have the same visual effect when dribbling from swollen lips as transfluid does. Dai Atlas does so _love_ wrecking his wonderful knight, in the best way.  
  


Still, he wants to have Wing writhing in overload first, so he manipulates his tentacle to press harder, directly against Wing’s anterior node, slicking the head with charge. Wing moans around the tentacle in his mouth, coolant and oral lubricant dribbling out of the corners of his lips, hips twitching and shifting as his frame tries to buck into Dai Atlas’ touch, not getting far at all.

The tentacles wrapping around his thighs buzz with a light charge at Dai Atlas’ command, sinking into the circuitry there, earthing itself in Wing’s close-by interface array. The hands at the back of Dai Atlas’ neck dig their fingers in, Wing shifting and moaning, flexing against his leader, his frame pulled back by the grip of the tentacles around his wrists, pushed forward by Dai Atlas’ anterior kibble, that slight tension and stretch so, _so_ good.

The tentacle at Wing’s anterior node ripples all the way along its sinuous length, its bio-lights flashing as Dai Atlas sets it to a different mode. The bulbous head at the tip splits open, splaying out like the five petals of a luna crystal flower, revealing the small silicone cups that line their undersides. Thick lubricant spills from the line they surround to reduce any potential discomfort as the tentacle latches on to Wing’s swollen anterior node, clasping it firmly, charge zinging through the conductive lubricant as it begins to stimulate the node, suction and release, again and again. Wing _wails_ around the tentacle in his mouth as his anterior node begins to be pumped, the leaking tip sliding across the roof of his intake as his head jerks about, frame writhing.

Dai Atlas smirks against the side of Wing’s helm as his knight’s charge levels sky-rocket, his EM field swirling with rising pleasure. It won’t be long, now. He sends another pulse of lubricant up through the tentacle, drawn from his modded-larger tanks, pumping and rippling against Wing’s throbbing and over-sensitised node, leaking out from the gaps as the splayed head doesn’t make a tight seal but it does hold a lot of it there, an echo of the taste on his glossa as the chemo-receptors inundate him with data. Wing’s vents are hitching, fans juddering, his mouth gasping around the tentacle head, wet and messy and utterly undone, just the way Dai Atlas adores to see, would contrive to see far more often if he thought Wing would be happy with him –

Dai Atlas reaches one hand just below where he is pumping Wing’s anterior node, ghosting a finger against the plump lips of his knight’s valve, Wing shuddering, and then he presses a single fingertip in, curling and hooking into the plush and pulsing walls, a shallow penetration only, rubbing against the inner wall right where Wing’s anterior node is attached to the outside, those sensor bundles embedded through, aching behind the mesh.

It’s enough: with a wordless cry, Wing overloads, charge flashing in arcs through the air to earth in Dai Atlas’ frame and along the earthing bars lining the sides of the berth, clenching around Dai Atlas’ fingertip, bucking into his hand, his tentacle, valve cycling down tight even as his slick coats his leader’s hand, soaking him. He writhes against Dai Atlas’ front, his frame flexing, pulled taut and straining, his EM field snapping loose and pulsing in waves as he rides his overload, his golden optics flashing white.

Dai Atlas watches it all, greedily, committing it to memory, letting his tentacles drop from Wing’s mouth and unlatch from his node, though continuing to hold him tight with the other four. He waits, pulsing reassurance as Wing comes down from his high, though he knows that his own arousal is still scorching in his EM field, his own systems protesting as the red lines in his HUD begin to dip a little, the charge cycling back through his systems little by little. Not anywhere near enough to make much difference to his overall state, of course, but enough to clear his head a little of the excess. Though, if Wing has his way – which he will – Dai Atlas will be the next to overload, so he doesn’t worry at all.

After a few moments, as his frame subsides and the shivers of aftershocks fade out, Wing turns his head as best he can, nuzzles into Dai Atlas’ cheek-plate, and breathes out, “You?” somewhat blearily. His optical shutters are still half-lidded, and he’s still sunk down below Dai Atlas’ waves, pliable and accepting. It’s a heady thrill, it always is, to be trusted with this, and Dai Atlas would never dream of abusing that trust.

“Close,” Dai Atlas answers softly.

Wing hums, his engines purring, and he dips his head forward, opening his lips, and without a word needing to be passed between them, Dai Atlas raises a tentacle and lets Wing take it into his mouth. He feels a flush of pleasure go through him as Wing pauses at the taste, feeling the ripple through his EM field as his knight realises that this is the other tentacle, the one that only moments ago was pumping his node, still covered in slick from them both, the head’s seams still loosened a little, not quite locked back together yet.

Wing slides his glossa against those seams, widening them again, lapping at the sensitive inside of the tentacle head, sensor nodes pulsing where they’re embedded at the bases of the silicone cups, digging his glossa under the edges to stimulate them. Dai Atlas’ engine rumbles as Wing sucks messily, vents heaving, and this time it’s not coolant that leaks from the line in the middle. Wing swallows it down as best he can, musky lubricant almost oily in his mouth, but that is not an unfamiliar or unpleasant texture, for a mechanical species.

Dai Atlas watches as those red lines in his HUD tick right back up, shuddering, his armour plates clattering, his EM field rolling. “Wing,” he gets out, static-laced and struggling.

Wing sucks harder, laving his glossa against the tentacle. Its head is loosened along the seams, but not splayed out any more – else it wouldn’t fit in his mouth comfortably – and he leaks some of his own charge from internal oral relays, letting the lubricant pick it up and carrying around his whole mouth, stimulating the head from every angle, pressing his lips tighter against it to try and haphazardly seal the gap where lubricant is dripping from the corners of his lips.

“Wing,” Dai Atlas says, strained, warningly.

Wing swallows back some of the lubricant, clearing his intake a little, and floods his mouth with more charge, sucking relentlessly. The tentacle pulses in his mouth, hot and heavy, and then Dai Atlas is groaning delightfully, right into Wing’s audio, and then a whole new taste is spilling from the tentacle, out of the seams, erupting with some force into Wing’s mouth, some sliding straight down his intake at the back, some dribbling from the corners of his lips, almost-sweet and rich, unmistakeably transfluid.

It’s not possible to swallow it all, even if Dai Atlas were not shaking against him, jostling him even as his tentacles grip tighter, spread him still somehow wider, Wing being stretched even more across Dai Atlas’ front as his leader’s spinal strut curves back with his overload, pushing forward his anterior kibble, pushing forward Wing who’s bent around him. Primus, but it feels _good._

Transfluid seeps from his swollen lips as the tentacle slips out for the last time, dripping down his chin, spotting down his collar faring, and Wing moans a little at the loss of that heated component in his mouth. When he’s like this, it’s almost grounding to have it there to suck on, heavy on his glossa, something to _do_ when he otherwise cannot move at all, a willing victim to pleasure, but he knows his leader’s tentacles get over-sensitive with overload, and he wouldn’t wish that discomfort upon Dai Atlas.

Dai Atlas’ low vocalisations stutter into silence and the two of them sit there a moment, their fans whirring and venting steam into the room, condensation wetting their plating and the strong smell of ozone and interface in the air, like burnt static. Dai Atlas shifts his hands from where they’ve been gripping the space between Wing’s thighs and his pelvic armour, letting up the tension from where he was pulling and straining the sockets. That’s sore, but it aches in a good way, even though Wing knows he’ll be feeling it tomorrow. Dai Atlas tries his very best to be studiously careful with the slighter frame of Wing, but physical strain is just a part of interface when your partner is in a size class so far away from yours, especially when engaging in play of any kind. Wing welcomes it, anyway.

“Are you okay?” Dai Atlas murmurs.

Wing hums. “Good,” he says, turning his head to nuzzle into Dai Atlas’ front, their EM fields buzzing against each other. There is no part of him that is preparing to say or send their safe word. He’s aching, but that ache is so, so good, and pleasure is still sparking in his circuits, and he knows there’s more to come. His valve is still empty, after all, and Dai Atlas promised to fill him with synthetic eggs. He clenches at the thought.

Dai Atlas’ fingers press against his wet folds, grazing his anterior node, and gently parting them. Wing makes a noise in the back of his intake, not loud enough to be a whimper, as Dai Atlas traces his entrance, teasing it with a single large fingertip, pushing it in once again, but this time deeper. With one overload already behind him, his valve is easier to penetrate, the charge that blew through his array leaving the calipers loosened a little, not cycled quite as tight. Wing moans as Dai Atlas presses that one finger in, the size difference between them enough for it to feel less like a finger and more like his leader is pushing a medium-sized toy into him.

Wing looks down, watches, his thighs twitching, his hips flexing into his leader, as Dai Atlas’ large digit disappears inside of him, feeling the press of it against his walls, against that first interior caliper, his golden node flashing bright above as Dai Atlas stretches him. The tentacles wrapped around his thighs shift and flex, but he’s already tugged as far apart as his frame’s specs will allow, a slight strain in his sockets, his vulnerable array completely exposed.

Dai Atlas pings his synthesising tank for an update: three synthetic eggs, each one the size of Wing’s closed fist, are ready for when he needs them. At the very base of his spinal strut, in the centre, another coiling limb slides out in preparation. It looks, superficially, identical to the six other tentacles, but this one has a different interior line, not designed for liquids, one instead made to push those eggs along it – the ovipositor.

But not yet. Wing’s not stretched enough, the breaching of his valve still shallow, though the first interior caliper has already given way beneath the press of Dai Atlas’ finger, and the second one is cycling down, again and again, at his fingertip, the bump of sensor bundles gathered at the ridges soaking up the slight charge Dai Atlas is leaking out, lubricant welling through the mesh walls thicker and faster. Wing is moaning, squirming, his hips stuttering out as he tries to press into Dai Atlas’ finger but can’t because of the hold he’s in. His hands clench into fists behind Dai Atlas’ neck, the tentacles coiling around his wrists still pulling him back, immobile, his frame pinned open and wanton, presented to an audience of exactly one.

_Should have moved the mirror,_ Dai Atlas thinks with a light regret. Right now, his hab suite wall is getting the best view of Wing undone with pleasure, in the process of being thoroughly debauched. But it’s a fleeting thought, one he puts out of mind, as he presses the tip of a second finger against Wing’s entrance ring, feeling the shudder go through his knight’s EM field at the touch.

With Wing’s moans and gasps echoing in his audios, Dai Atlas presses that first finger all the way in, prodding the very back of Wing’s valve channel, feeling the bump and throb of the interior node, hearing Wing’s cry as he finds it, sinking a spark of charge into it, the pulse and clench of Wing’s walls surrounding him. His second finger is still at the third caliper, widening it, stretching Wing apart in preparation for what’s to come: his knight enjoys more than one of Dai Atlas’ tentacles in his valve at once – and, to be fair, so does Dai Atlas – but such a thing requires a bit of preparation before it can be done, else he will injure Wing, which is definitely not something either of them want.

Dai Atlas coils those two free tentacles between their spread legs, the ovipositor curling over the top of their right legs, resting there ‘til it’s ready for use. Wing sees it, whines, and the fingers inside him press against his walls, spreading him open wider, his calipers fluttering as they cycle down futilely against the intrusion.

“Patience,” Dai Atlas murmurs.

Wing whimpers, a half-gasp falling from his lips, as Dai Atlas slowly pulls his fingers out with a wet sound, valve lubricant coating them and glistening on his armour, and spreads them either side of his entrance ring to keep his plush valve lips spread open.

He lays one tentacle against the valve entrance, pressing the tip at the clenching ring, finally letting it catch a little. Wing twitches in place as that tip presses a little harder, his entrance ring fluttering around the bulbous head as it pushes slowly inside, breaching him with a wet sounding pop, heavy in the space between his entrance ring and his first caliper.

Wing clenches down on it, and it slides farther in, pressing against the first caliper, already so loosened, widening it again, breaching that ridge as well. One tentacle is not as wide as two fingers, especially fingers belonging to a mech Dai Atlas’ size, so the second caliper is passed shortly after, and then it’s just the third and tightest, cycling down and resisting the relentless pressure on its ridges and sensors. Wing’s head is tipped back already, whines spilling from his vocaliser, as Dai Atlas’ tentacle penetrates him fully, pleasure looping through his circuitry, blossoming in his EM field, his valve clenching down so wonderfully on the intrusion.

When the tentacle head finally bumps against the interior node, Wing letting out a choked gasp when it does, Dai Atlas switches the mode of the tentacle, slowly transforming the head open, letting it split into five once more, widening the deepest point of Wing’s valve. The space between the third caliper and the end of the valve channel is where the eggs will go, all the interlocking components behind the mesh expanding, unlatching from each other to help accommodate, the interior node throbbing with constant stimulation as the eggs shift inside, held there by the way the calipers will cycle back down as tight as they go when the tentacles and ovipositor are removed. Their kind has no ability to sexually reproduce, has no natural space inside them for eggs to be deposited, but with some careful preparation, they can get very close.

So Dai Atlas stretches Wing, prods his innermost valve walls with the splayed tentacle head, leaks charge and lubricant into the space to entice a loosening. At Wing’s entrance ring, he sets the second tentacle.

“Please,” Wing whispers.

Dai Atlas presses inside, the entrance ring stretching open wider with a burning ache that Wing’s systems don’t really parse as pain. There’s the feeling of pressure, and Dai Atlas shifts a hand to rub a pair of fingers against Wing’s throbbing anterior node, adding more stimulation to help tip the balance towards pleasure more certainly, Wing moaning as the head of the second tentacle pushes in past his entrance ring, sliding inside with a wet sound, dragging along his inner walls, his sensor nodes, the other tentacle.

Dai Atlas shifts the two tentacles against each other, letting them flex, Wing’s valve stretching with every movement, looser and wider and more comfortable with how much is inside him. Sensor bundles pulse with pleasure, lubricant seeps through thicker, and Wing’s calipers flutter and stretch and submit to the new intrusion, the second tentacle’s head pressing in past the first caliper, the second caliper, right up to the edge of the third. Wing moans and his vents stutter and Dai Atlas continues to send through low volts of charge, stretching open his valve channel, fingers rubbing circles against the swollen anterior node, the plump valve lips below flushed and throbbing, fluttering against the two tentacles breaching Wing.

Deep inside, Dai Atlas manipulates the tentacle already situated at the back of Wing’s valve, moving the already-splayed head against the interior node. Wing gasps, feeling it deep within, _knowing_ what Dai Atlas is about to do – and the tentacle gently latches onto the interior node, clasping around it, a throbbing and aching bump set into the mesh valve ceiling, and begins to pump it, just as it did before, on his outer primary pleasure node.

Wing’s EM field near-explodes with pleasure, his head tossed back, banging on Dai Atlas’ armour plates, his vocaliser emitting a shriek of static, his entire frame shuddering. His valve calipers clench and loosen, the second tentacle head penetrating the third caliper, slipping up to join the first in the back of the valve. His anterior node brightens, gold light against Dai Atlas’ fingers, and charge crackles from his frame to earth itself in Dai Atlas, coruscating over their armour, some of it drawn and caught by the earthing bars on the berth.

As Wing’s fans judder inside their placements in his vents, hot air blown noisily into the room, systems ticking up in his HUD, Dai Atlas lets out a low chuckle. “You look so beautiful like this,” he murmurs, truthfully, trying to hide the depth of the feeling behind the words, though maybe his tone is still too open to be completely successful. If Wing’s processor wasn’t trying to reset on him along with the rest of his systems, he might have lingered on the words longer, thought on the tone, picked them both apart for the meaning – but as it is, he doesn’t, groaning with pleasure instead, his thoughts fuzzy beyond the base desire of _more, more, more._

Dai Atlas leaks more charge into Wing’s array, the second tentacle nudging at the walls before splaying open itself, forcing another stretch, this one easier, loose components loosening more with an ache too good to call _burning,_ though the internal temperature of Wing is heightening with every second.

“I’m – I’m gonna – ” Wing tries to speak, fails, but Dai Atlas knows what he means.

“Give some of the excess to me,” Dai Atlas says into his audio, and Wing obeys immediately, some part of him grateful for an _order,_ for a direction given to him by Dai Atlas. _Do this, give me that, take what you need._ It’s never anything Wing would have hesitated to do even when not folded in submission, but something about being in this mind frame gives the actions an extra layer, makes them mean something, beyond the action itself. Wing’s spent millennia chasing after that depth with a prospective life partner, but he’s only ever managed to find it in his friend and leader, no one else yet fitting quite right or willing to _learn_ how to fit together with him –

Wing wrestles with his systems a moment, redirecting the excess charge to his armour plates, letting it leap with a flash over to Dai Atlas’ larger frame, with its larger capacitors, not filled as quickly as Wing’s. The lines in his HUD dip down, and Wing lets Dai Atlas take a little more, lets them fall ‘til they’re about three-quarters full, before he cuts off the charge.

Dai Atlas’ vents are heavy and warm across his back, and Wing reckons they’re probably around the same capacitor per cent, if he had to guess. Enough for Dai Atlas’ ovipositor to sheathe inside of him before they both tip over into another overload. He clenches at the thought, valve cycling down on the two writhing tentacles, one still pumping his throbbing interior node in pulses of white-hot pleasure and the other coiling and stretching the deepest part of his valve, leaking out low volts of charge and more lubricant to mix with Wing’s own, getting him ready for what’s to come.

Dai Atlas removes his fingers from Wing’s anterior node, tracing his knight’s plundered entrance, prodding at the valve lips, the two tentacles, catching at the stretched entrance ring and tugging and pressing there, pushing his fingertip inside to test if there’s enough room yet. Wing moans as he does so, valve fluttering as he sinks his finger in, up to the second joint, pressing at Wing’s first interior caliper and pushing ‘til it lets him through. He moves it there, experimentally, teasing at the sensor nodes bundling up against the ridge, before withdrawing it, resting the fingertip once more on the anterior node, pressing there but not rubbing at it.

Dai Atlas coils the ovipositor down from their right thighs, pressing the head against the already-stuffed valve, the two tentacles separating a little, pressing into opposite walls to make room, stretching open a gap between them, Dai Atlas switching their mode again. He waits.

Wing moans at the shifting in his valve, as the two bulbous heads already lodged deep inside him close from their splayed mode, leaving behind an empty space that aches to be filled again. He unshutters his optics, tips his head down to see where Dai Atlas’ tentacles are pretty much impaling him, disappearing into him with such a lovely stretch, swollen node and plump folds and lubricant everywhere. He can still feel transfluid on his chin. He notices the ready ovipositor immediately.

“Please,” he begs again, voice crackling with static. The empty space the tentacles stretched wide open inside of him aches.

Dai Atlas pushes the ovipositor in.

Wing moans, optics fixed on the flexing limb as it forces him to open even wider, bio-lights glistening gold on both of them, pulsing with a rippling glow as Dai Atlas presses a third tentacle into him, this one unlike the other two in function, but similar in girth and build. It’s a tight fit, of course it is, the ovipositor flexing and shifting and pushing its way in, Wing’s valve cycling down and clenching and _submitting,_ his legs open as wide as the sockets allow, his inner walls dripping with lubricant to help the ovipositor glide its way in, calipers widened nearly to their very limits to fit all three tentacles inside.

Wing’s vents hitch, his vocaliser crackling with static and trying to short out, turning his moans higher-pitched, whines trailing off into white noise as Dai Atlas’ ovipositor pushes inside. It squeezes past his first caliper, Wing’s vents heaving, past his second, Wing’s hands clenching in the grip the two tentacles still have around his wrists, immobile, past his third, Wing’s entire frame writhing in place where it’s pinned and pulled taut, helpless against the rolling waves of heat and pleasure, and comes to rest in that deepest space, three bulbous heads stretching the valve ceiling area open, bumping against each other, bumping against the aching interior node, lubricant thick with charge surrounding them.

Wing doesn’t think he’s actually capable of making words at this point, but Dai Atlas pauses anyway. “Wing?” he asks, gently, if strained with his own pleasure, his frame no less aroused, waiting for permission, knowing how overwhelming Wing finds this point to be, letting his knight gather himself enough to send their safe word and stop if he wants to.

“Yes,” Wing sobs out, breathlessly, “yes, yes, _yes –_ Dai, _please – ”_

Dai Atlas nods – Wing can’t see it, but he can feel it – and one of the tentacles begins to pull out, to make room for the eggs to come. It drags along every one of Wing’s caliper ridges, Dai Atlas biting down a groan at how his tentacles are sliding against each other, finally tugging at the inside of the gaping entrance ring and coming loose with a pop, lubricant spilling in its wake. Dai Atlas shudders in time with Wing, retracting the tentacle, it sliding over their left legs, around their side, all the way into its housing on Dai Atlas’ back. He feels drips of lubricant slide down, even as he disconnects that particular tentacle from having access to the fluid tanks, powering it down, letting the sensors and relays fade out.

Just next to the rehoused tentacle, the base of the ovipositor initiates a small transformation sequence, widening with the click and the turn of the circular rings that all joint together. Dai Atlas inhales a deep vent as the first synthetic egg is drawn into the ovipositor, the components flexing and rippling, pushing it along. Down the length of the coil it goes, around their side, over their right thighs – Wing whimpers at the sight of it, the visible bulge travelling along – and down to Wing’s stuffed valve, pressing against his entrance ring from inside the ovipositor already stretching it open wide.

Wing vents deep, cycling it through carefully, and tries to relax as much as possible. It’s instinct to clamp down hard on the weight in his valve, but there’s more to come, and he needs to be looser. His thighs tremble as the egg increases its pressure, anterior node gleaming bright under Dai Atlas’ finger, his valve lips fluttering around the bump in the ovipositor as it’s pushed against his stretched entrance ring, the ring cycling down and catching on it, slowly being breached.

Dai Atlas shifts the two tentacles inside, prodding against the swollen interior node, beginning to rub at the anterior one again as the first egg manages to push its way inside, Wing moaning at the sudden weight in his valve as it pushes past the entrance ring and stretches into the space between that and the first caliper. Dai Atlas groans himself, and at the small of his back, the second egg begins to be pushed along the ovipositor.

Already so stretched, enough to be sore if not for the pleasure still running through every circuit and relay of his array, Wing’s first caliper cycles down once, twice, and then the egg is partway through, and it clenches uselessly, the egg breaching it as well. The second caliper is parted around the first egg when the second egg presses against the entrance ring.

This time it’s easier, with one egg already inside. The second egg pushes in, is pressing up against the first caliper at the same time that the first egg is tumbling through the third caliper, just below the head of the ovipositor. The tip splits open, five segments parting around the synthetic egg being pushed out the middle, and Wing gasps at the sudden drop of weight into the back of his valve as the first egg squeezes free of the ovipositor, laid inside him. It’s large, as large as his closed fist, and already it feels like there won’t be enough room. Dai Atlas manipulates the other tentacle, drawing it out of the valve ceiling area, tucking it instead into the space between the second and third caliper. It still has a job to do.

The third and last egg emerges from the small of his back as the second egg presses up against the third caliper, loose and cycling down, Wing moaning in short bursts as it gets pushed through, the ovipositor sliding back, the base of the splayed head immediately after the third caliper’s ridge, making space for the emerging egg. It’s a heavy weight, rolling down from the ovipositor to nestle deep inside him, the interior node being pressed directly against by the two large eggs.

At this point, it’s just too much for Wing’s valve to handle. It needs more room to expand, interlocking pieces stretching nearly to their limits behind the thick mesh walls, hampered by the solid internal systems surrounding them in Wing’s abdomen. There’s only one direction that has give; Wing’s outer abdominal armour plates unlatch, separating out, soft grey protoform swelling up as it expands outwards in the only direction it has to make room.

Dai Atlas breathes out at the sight, and Wing whimpers. It doesn’t hurt, not at all, he just feels very _full,_ like his fuel tanks are all at top capacity but different somehow. Dai Atlas, one hand still between Wing’s spread legs, at his presented array, now moves the other to cup the bottom curve of the swollen abdomen, feeling the soft protoform in between the hard armour plates, the pliable metal hot to the touch, circuitry lighting up from beneath with charge. He doesn’t press against it, just holds its weight, and the pseudo-image of an impossible carriage makes them both cycle a few heavy vents.

The third egg presses at the valve entrance.

“Last one,” Dai Atlas murmurs to Wing, stroking his abdomen gently, rubbing a little at the anterior node with his other hand. Wing moans, his head tipped back, glancing at Dai Atlas with his golden optics briefly before shuttering them. Dai Atlas presses a kiss against his cheek, trembling with his own arousal. “You’re doing so well.”

Dai Atlas pushes the third egg in, his ovipositor rippling. The abused and stretched entrance ring doesn’t put up any kind of fight, and neither does the first caliper. The second one cycles a couple of times, but submits easily enough, clenching against the bump in the ovipositor as it passes through. At the third caliper, Wing’s frame flexes enough at the press to shift the eggs already laid inside him, Dai Atlas huffing as they press against his ovipositor head, finding the touch pleasurable, Wing whining out static as they shift against his swollen and sensitive interior node, all his walls flexing and stretching to accommodate the new position.

“Nearly there,” Dai Atlas soothes, pulsing comfort through his EM field, looping their pleasure between them, the third egg halfway through the last caliper, the segmented metal ring behind the mesh cycling down against the egg as it pushes through the last of the ovipositor. And then it’s through, and it’s emerging into the very last of the space Wing has inside him, the swell beneath his hand shivering as it grows a little more.

Wing lets out a low noise as the last egg is pushed into him, jostling the two already there and shifting their positions again until all three are nestled into his valve, straining his array to its limits. His abdomen and valve feel heavy, full, and pleasure is a hot coil inside him, ready to snap at any moment.

Dai Atlas tugs the ovipositor out at the same time that he presses the last tentacle in, catching the third caliper before it can cycle down all the way. He continues to remove the ovipositor, the head tugging on each and every caliper ridge on its way out, achingly good as it drags against the pleasure nodes and sensor bundles, all the way ‘til it tugs at the entrance ring from the inside, popping free, the loosened ring clenching down on the single tentacle left inside.

Dai Atlas glances at his HUD, at the red lines filled out in a list on the side, overload held at bay only by a strength of will several million years old, and maybe with the secondary capacitors he had modded on aeons ago, themselves half-filled, a versatile mod to stave off overload or else make it literally twice as good. Yeah, they might have helped a little. He flicks the setting that switches his frame back to default, with the ability to have a full-frame overload with only the primary capacitors, Wing shifting and moaning against his front, desperate for the release that’s so very, very close.

Charge crackles through Dai Atlas’ frame, making his optics blare a bright white before he squeezes them tightly shut, his fans whining as they spin, his frame shuddering in place, a low cry escaping his vocaliser, his engines rumbling. His hands grip down on Wing’s frame, cupping his swollen abdomen, pressing into his array, fingers sliding between the folds, the tentacle pulsing as the bio-lights trailing up it all flash in sequence.

Deep inside Wing’s valve, transfluid is pumped in, Dai Atlas drawing a good amount from his tanks, filling the tiniest gaps still left between the eggs, Wing’s abdomen swelling more and more as transfluid fills him with a thick and hot wetness, some spilling back down through the third caliper, flooding the rest of the valve. Wing gasps, charge from Dai Atlas’ frame leaping to him, the excess he gave that Dai Atlas now gives back, all his systems blown beyond capacity, overload seizing him in a heady rush. His array clenches down, right against the eggs, their heavy fullness and presence in his valve leaving him shivering, his frame rattling as it tries to parse just _what_ he has done with his array.

They tremble together, rattling each other’s frames, engines roaring before rumbling before purring, the scent of ozone thick in the air, tiny sparks of left-over charge crackling across their armour and buzzing between them. The room is warmed by their ventilations, and their minds are blank with that white rush, pleasure looping through their EM fields and shuddering their frames with its aftershocks, as they come up a little from their overload.

Dai Atlas blinks his optics open, takes a moment to reorient himself, and withdraws the last tentacle, the lubricant and transfluid and over-stretched valve letting it slip free with next to no hassle, the third caliper cycling down as tight as it will go, trapping the eggs, some liquid still leaking back through, sensitising the valve. Wing moans, low, staticky, tired, as it pulls out, his valve feeling achy and sore and so, so good.

They vent together for another few moments, cycling in time with each other, the way that millennia of shared meditations gives them an unconscious sense of rhythm for. Dai Atlas withdraws the tentacle back into its housing, and loosens his other tentacles’ grips on Wing. They uncoil from his knight’s thighs, retracting back around, and he reaches out, gently, and unhooks Wing’s legs from the sides of his own, lifting them to lie between his own spread legs, no longer forced wide. Wing’s legs tremble, ache, and there’s a pool of sticky lubricant and transfluid cooling between his thighs, his valve stretched and swollen and very _used._ It would make quite a sight if he could see it past his raised abdomen.

Behind his neck, Dai Atlas stops pinning Wing’s wrists, the tentacles there letting go and retracting down to rehouse themselves, all six coiling back in and the ovipositor following them, the two armour plates sliding back down and latching. Wing’s arms sag, still positioned upwards, and Dai Atlas gently raises his own, takes Wing’s wrists, and lowers his arms for him. His wonderful knight sags forward, no longer pulled taut against him, over his swollen abdomen, groaning as he does so, the eggs shifting inside him, his frame aching and strained.

“Let’s get you down,” Dai Atlas whispers, shifting Wing and himself. He gets out from behind Wing, stands on somewhat shaky pedes next to the berth, arranging Wing’s frame to lie down, his knight blinking at him with dim, half-shuttered optics. _Aftercare,_ Dai Atlas instructs himself. _Wing submitted to_ _ **a lot**_ _tonight._ He fumbles with the side drawer for some solvent wipes, recalling that Wing likes to be cleaned, but that when they’ve been using the ovipositor mod, the weight his frame now holds makes too much movement too soon undesirable for him, making the wash-rack a no-go right now.

Wing makes a low noise as Dai Atlas gently wipes his array clean, careful and light on the plump valve lips, the still-swollen and over-sensitised node, encouraging him with murmured words to slide his panel back over his array. Wing does so, and Dai Atlas wipes up the gumming and sticky fluids from Wing’s legs and pelvic armour, from his lips and his front. Dai Atlas uses the wipes to clean himself as well, far less mess on him than on Wing, though when he gets to a wash-rack to clean his mod properly it'll be another story, before putting the tin on the side.

Then he lifts Wing up, his knight still in his arms, his EM field merging with Dai Atlas’, a gentle and trusting lap at his edges. He sits him in the chair next to the dresser, little pots of waxes and polishes and chamois cloths and brushes spread across the surface in front of the mirror. Wing watches him as he lifts the high-density foam topper from the berth, folds it and dumps it straight down the laundry chute, and pulls another from the storage compartment beneath, spreading the clean one out atop his berth.

Wing makes a pleased hum when Dai Atlas returns to him, picking him up and spreading him back out on the large berth, careful of his swollen abdomen and its weight. By now, Wing’s EM field is a bit more _present,_ a reflection of a mind that is not sunk so deeply, but rather bobbing steadily to the surface.

Dai Atlas offers Wing a small cube of energon, and then helps him up into a sitting position again, leaning against the wall at the head of the berth, holding the cube to his lips and tilting it into his mouth. Wing lets his leader feed him, swallowing away the taste of coolant and transfluid, and turns his head to the side in refusal when the cube is half-empty. He’s had enough.

Dai Atlas reseals the cube and puts it away, before he closes the drawer and rejoins Wing on the berth.

“Wing?” he asks as they lie there, Dai Atlas’ EM field meshing against Wing’s, the way he’s asked for in aftercare. _Physical_ touch is generally hit and miss for Wing in the first breems as he rises up from his submission, and he likes to initiate himself. It’s not what most people expect, when Wing is naturally so tactile, but Dai Atlas knows that it tends to simply shove Wing back down into submission, rather than cause him distress… not the _worst_ of mistakes to make, for sure, but rather counter-intuitive when they’re trying to bring him back up to the surface. Also: it’s what Wing’s asked for, and no person should disrespect that, even if – perhaps _especially_ if – they think they know better.

Wing breathes out, “I’m here,” he says, whispery. He resets his vocaliser, turning his head to meet Dai Atlas’ optics. His lips quirk into a smile. “You sure do know how to give a mech a good time.”

Dai Atlas huffs, amused. He stretches his limbs, hearing gears click and pistons hiss, feeling languid and satiated. “I hope so,” he says. “Are you okay?”

“Good,” Wing says, shuttering his optics, inhaling, “really, really good. I needed this, I think.”

Dai Atlas hums in question. “Stress?” he asks, thinking, scrolling through recent events in his head again. “You can take a break, you know. Drift knows Axe, he can stay with him for a few days, if you want some time away.”

Wing’s EM field flashes with confusion a moment, before ruefulness sets in a little. “Thanks, Dai,” he says, “but I’m fine, I think. Tonight’s enough… I want to get back to Drift tomorrow. It’s – I won’t say it’s not been a bit full-on, but I don’t feel like I need a break from him, not something that long. I don’t find him tiring to be around, even when he vexes me.”

“He vexes a lot of us,” Dai Atlas grumbles, not meanly, a beat of sympathy pulsing through his spark. Dai Atlas has fought in two wars… but Drift’s war is the bloodiest one, the cruellest and most energon-soaked. He remembers the adjustment he himself had to go through, how strange the ways of mecha not soldiers were at first. He has no doubt he vexed many himself, when he was still fresh off the battlefields of the First and Second Cybertronian Wars.

Wing laughs lightly, recognising the joke for what it is, and smiles honestly at Dai Atlas. “Thanks for the offer, though… and I won’t say that this time was not welcome, but – Drift’s settling in a bit now, and our evenings together are pleasant. Sorry for giving you the wrong idea.” His face softens at the memory files.

Dai Atlas regards Wing, and, with a sinking feeling somewhere in his spark chamber, shutters his optics. _Ah. So that’s it._

“He’s not anywhere near ready for that sort of thing, Wing,” Dai Atlas warns quietly. “Don’t hurt him.”

Wing blinks at him. “Dai?”

Dai Atlas meets Wing’s optics steadily. “Drift. He’s not ready for that sort of attention, not if you want him to reciprocate from a healthy place, and not feel like he _has_ to, as payment of some kind.”

Wing’s processor takes a couple of seconds to work that out, but once he does he says, indignantly, “I would never! I’m not – I would never!”

Dai Atlas raises a hand, urging Wing to calm. “I know you would not,” he says. “You are honourable and trustworthy, Wing. But your spark overflows its love so obviously, that I fear you would place Drift into an awkward position without ever trying or intending to. So be careful.”

Wing flushes, the hinged finials on his helm twitching. “It’s not – I’ve not known Drift that long,” he says, “and – I will not deny an attraction. But – there’re plenty pretty mecha here in New Crystal City and. It’s not like that. I don’t know. It’s – I don’t know.”

“Drift _is_ a handsome mech,” Dai Atlas acknowledges, “but you are not a shallow person, Wing. It’s not his face you like.” Here, Dai Atlas shoots Wing a teasing upturn of his mouth, not quite deep enough to be called a smile. “Or, at least, not _solely_ his face. It’s his mind, his spark, that you are drawn to. Am I wrong?”

Wing shifts on to his side, facing Dai Atlas fully, groaning a little as that movement rearranges the synthetic eggs in his valve, grazing against his interior node, the weight of his swollen abdominal protoform beneath the loosened armour plates resting heavily on the berth. “Maybe not wrong,” he admits. “But – he’s hurting. I can’t. I can’t add to that. And I know it’s a fool’s desire to want to _fix_ somebody, but I want to be by his side while he mends himself. I want to be a shoulder to lean on, when he needs the extra help.”

Wing reaches a hand out to grasp Dai Atlas’, feeling the need for a touch to ground him. “This isn’t – I’ve never felt like this before, Dai. Drift is – he’s _so bright._ He’s done terrible things, and good intentions don’t excuse them, but – he was brave, to make a stand against the Functionists, to go to war, prepared to fight and die. I would not glorify such hideous violence, but I cannot help but respect the strength it took to live the life Drift has lived.”

Dai Atlas hums. “You want to be the peace that Drift has fought his whole life for,” he says, perceptively.

Wing groans. “I’ve known him but a handful of months,” he complains. “How does someone seep into the spark this way? So deep, so fast?”

_How indeed?_ Dai Atlas thinks, quiet and sad. “Give it time,” he advises, softly, “there is no need for haste, and to rush would be to neglect to build a solid foundation going forward. Perhaps what you desire now will come into being over time, perhaps it will not. Perhaps your feelings may change, or his, or both of yours. These things are not set in stone, Wing.”

Wing nods. “I know, Dai,” he replies. “I just – cannot help but dwell, sometimes, in dreams. You know I am a dreamer.”

Dai Atlas smiles at that, and if it’s a bit melancholic, Wing will probably put it down to memory files full of Wing’s previous adventures, rather than the closing of a door Dai Atlas never had the courage to open fully. “Do not let go of your dreams, they are so very important,” he says, “but don’t forget that life is not lived in a dreamland, either. Life is a continuous ongoing question – do not decide you have the answer and cling to it forever more, for as the questions change so do the replies the universe gives you.”

“I won’t, Dai,” Wing promises.

Dai Atlas strokes a finger over Wing’s cheek-plate, a caress that may never belong to him again. “Ask Drift what his dreams are,” he says. “Let him rediscover old ones, or put them to rest. Let him find new ones here, too. He needs a friend right now – be that to him. Let other things come later, if they choose to.”

Wing nods, then pauses. “We’re friends, aren’t we?” he asks.

_Yes,_ Dai Atlas thinks. _Or – I consider us to be._ “I place great value upon your companionship.”

Wing smiles at that, so bright, and says, “Thank you.”

Dai Atlas blinks. “Dare I ask what for?”

Wing shifts closer, nuzzles into his chest. “Being a good friend to me,” he says. “Your advice is always clear, your counsel wise. I know I – don’t always follow your will, in ways that could even be construed as disrespect, but – I have held you close in my mind and spark for aeons, and I would not have you think that I do not.” He laughs, softly. “I confess to drawing a lot upon your example when I work with Drift. I was hardly the easiest student myself.”

“You were not,” Dai Atlas answers, letting the other words sink into him, warming and cooling in equal measure, “but worth it all.”

“Drift is worth it,” Wing says, certain, optics distant. “And I’m not just saying that. There’s a spirit inside of him, and it’s been choking for so long – I can’t let it fade.”

Dai Atlas curls one of his big hands around Wing, gently pulls him closer. “It won’t,” he assures Wing. “I have faith in you, and you have faith in Drift. Light will shine on his path again – let him have the chance to open the shutters, expose his shadows, send them skittering away. Do not be discouraged – and do not let _him_ be discouraged – by the fact that it is a mountainous task.”

“To move a mountain, one begins by clearing away small stones,” Wing quotes to him. “Thank you, Dai,” Wing smiles at him, “perhaps I needed some time away from the situation – it is so large when it is close, overwhelming.” He leans in, presses a kiss to Dai Atlas’ lips, both of them uncaring of the faint trace of fluids still staining them, their taste and scent. “I have enjoyed this.”

Dai Atlas hums. “I would hope so,” he says, going for light, for teasing, anything to put a stop to a conversation that is hitting something deep and painful inside of him. Wounds like that need to bleed, but Wing doesn’t know he’s holding a knife, and it’s not his problem, it’s Dai Atlas’. There’ll be time for the quiet mourning of paths untaken later, not now, not when Wing is still here, warm and full and bright, and Dai Atlas’ face is turned towards his glow.

Wing chuckles, a little. “No, no, I did, I did,” he says, shuffling his frame into Dai Atlas’ side, into his arms. “I have found this evening to be _very_ pleasurable.” He strokes a hand across his own swollen abdomen, watching as Dai Atlas’ optics focus on it. Then he takes one of Dai Atlas’ large hands in his own, trailing it across his closed panel, still warm and a little damp from the cleaning wipes, bringing it to rest upon his abdominal plating, cupping the gaps where the plates are unlatched, soft protoform visible beneath. Beneath their hands, the eggs visibly shift, rippling the plating and protoform. “You?”

“ _You,”_ Dai Atlas accuses, “continue to be a menace.” He doesn’t move his hand, though.

Wing laughs, and his EM field rolls with a tired amusement. Both of them are tired, and he doesn’t want to part from Dai Atlas’ warm frame, doesn’t want to have to leave his friend’s berth ‘til morning.

Dai Atlas rearranges his frame onto his side – not a mean feat – and gently rolls a pliable Wing over to face away from him before pulling him gently back in, a hand still curling around his raised abdomen. “Is this fine?”

Wing snuggles in, his back to Dai Atlas’ front once again, feeling his leader’s warm ventilations across his folded wings, his large EM field a blanket over him, his eggs shifting into new position, stretching his inner valve walls, but not in a way that hurts. “Yeah,” he says, “I like this.”

Wing shutters his optics, lets the feeling of being warm and full and cradled with such care pull him down. Behind him, Dai Atlas drops a soft kiss to the top of his helm and clutches his frame, not tightly but still firmly, like Wing is going to roll off the berth if he doesn’t. Going to leave him.

_I’m glad you’re my friend,_ Wing thinks, too sleepy for the words to make it to his vocaliser. He hopes that Drift will come to think of him as a friend, too, maybe even more, but until then, Wing is not alone, not like how Drift perceives himself to be, so maybe he should ask some other knights to come and help offer Drift more opportunities, yeah, that would be a good idea…

Dai Atlas listens as Wing’s internal systems quieten with recharge, watching his knight in the dim room, a wireless ping to the lights turning them off. Wing is warm against his front, solid and real. Under Dai Atlas’ hand, the bump made by the synthetic eggs is a strange curve of soft protoform interspersed with hard armour segments, and it will be mostly gone by morning, and completely gone, the armour plates re-latching, before Wing leaves to return to his home, to return to Drift.

And Drift… will be better for Wing than Dai Atlas. He knows this. Wing is a free spirit, moved into action by his kind and determined spark, eager to go _out_ and lend his aid to any who need. Dai Atlas understands completely, finds Wing admirable, even, despite his frustration with the way Wing bends and breaks the rules laid down for such important reasons. But… he is old, older than Wing, and he desires stability, a steadiness in his life, now. He would be the faithful lover for Wing to come home to, if Wing would let him, but Wing wants someone who would run by his side instead, spur him to new heights, someone to love freely and brazenly, with a steady constancy of a different flavour than the one Dai Atlas could give, and no judgement upon him for it. But Dai Atlas cannot be that person.

_It’s time to let him go,_ Dai Atlas recognises, a pang of pain in his spark. He loves Wing, and Wing loves him back, but they do not love each other in the same way. It would be _cruel_ to try to convince Wing to stay, he’s known it since the start. It’s why he never tried.

_Look after him… Drift._

Dai Atlas stares at the languid frame tucked into his own, memorising Wing’s EM field and this singular hanging moment, captured and stored with care into memory files, with a precision and focus he doesn’t usually give. He is not alone, but somehow his own hab has never felt so empty.

**Author's Note:**

> Poor Dai Atlas... and poor Wing, since his canonical fate is not far around the corner.
> 
> So, this fic was born of three things:  
> 1) I really like these two characters and their relationship.  
> 2) I wanted to try writing tentacle sex as a challenge to myself.  
> 3) I was beginning to get real fucking salty about the way Dai Atlas is often cast into this OOC two-dimensional villain role in a lot of fics that explore the relationship (both platonic and romantic) between Drift and Wing.
> 
> Title is from the poem _Detail of the Woods_ by Richard Siken, which can be found [here](https://poets.org/poem/detail-woods).
> 
> I can also be found on [tumblr](https://stairre.tumblr.com/). Come and say hello!


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